The Beach House
by M. Rig
Summary: Brennan finds sanctuary at a house on the beach, and with Booth, when she needs it most.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Don't own Bones. **

Brennan grasped the wooden railing of the patio and leaned far out into the open air, letting the cool breeze whipping over the ocean lift the strands of hair around her shoulders. The salty tang of marine filled her mouth as she smiled, letting her lips fall slightly open to taste the effervescent brine. The sun beat down on her shoulders, bared but for the thin straps of a summer dress, and she reflected on how long it had been since she'd felt the warmth and weight of noontime summer pressing down on her. Flexing her toes against the wooden slats beneath her feet, she lifted herself on her arms and balanced further out, thinking vaguely of a sailing ship's figurehead, dipping proudly through open waves. The rhythmic shhhhhhh of breakers hitting the beach lulled her into a profound sense of stillness, of being paused, as the comically raucous shrieks of seagulls zinged around her.

Her partner stood behind her, the breeze lifting the edges of the white shirt that he wore unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up over tanned forearms that carried two steaming mugs. He held one out to her, slowly crossing the deck. She couldn't help but glance at the bronze color of his bare chest, gilded by the sun, or the lean symmetrical plating of his stomach.

"Coffee?" he offered quietly.

"Mmmmm," she accepted the mug gratefully, inhaling the dark-roasted steam swirling from the inky liquid. "This smells amazing… did you finally learn how to make a decent cup of coffee?" she teased.

Grinning, he merely quirked his eyebrows at her before taking a swallow from his own mug. Standing by her side, he playfully bumped her shoulder with his and rested his hand next to hers on the railing. His eyes followed her gaze out to the open ocean, resting on the thin seam of the horizon where the deep blue of the ocean met the cornflower blue of the sky. Breathing deeply, as if the ocean air could fill not only her lungs but her belly, Brennan tipped her head back to surrender the even plane of her face to the sun. The light was so bright, so pervasive, that it glowed orange even behind her closed eyelids. She felt suffused, diffused, infused, all at once.

"I'm glad you came," Booth said softly. "You needed a break."

Returning her gaze to her partner's warm eyes, she studied the man that had defiantly grown into her best friend. "I really did," she agreed. Tilting her head onto the broad width of his shoulder, she let the moment wash over her, feeling at peace for the first time in too long.

The sound of laughter, lifted on the breeze, reached their ears. Below them, Angela and Hodgins chased each other across the beach, frolicking like children. Angela's joyous shrieks weren't totally dissimilar from the cries of the seagulls wheeling overhead, Brennan thought with amusement. Hodgins had a handful of what appeared to be seaweed, and he seemed intent on weaving it into the wind-whipped strands of Angela's hair as they tussled with each other in the sand. Their levity seemed to distract Sweets from the book he'd been reading, as he paused to peer at them from behind his oversized sunglasses and ridiculous, zinc-oxide painted nose. She had forgotten that he was here. She had to admit that she'd slowly become fond of the underage psychologist, perhaps against her better judgment, but she could only hope that he didn't intend to spend his time here observing her and Booth. For the time being, at least, he seemed just as diverted by the charms of the beach as the rest of them.

Brennan could only smile as she observed the scene. Maybe she should take more vacations, she mused idly, that didn't involve anything resembling work. This languid relaxation certainly wasn't as bad as she had thought it might be. The fervent kiss of sun seemed to sink into the deepest layers of her skin, so that it seemed she would be able to store it like a solar cell, and bring it back with her when she returned home.

Home… she thought of the word idly as she tipped her head up to stare at Booth's face so close to her own. His smile was gentle as he glanced down at her, and he wrapped his arm solidly over her shoulders, pulling her firmly into his side. "Your Dad wanted me to tell you that lunch is almost ready," he said.

"My Dad?" She frowned slightly, feeling disoriented. Perhaps she'd stayed in the sun too long, she thought. Raising her fingertips to her cheeks, she pressed delicately, testing the temperature of her skin for sunburn. She _was _quite warm.

Abandoning her coffee mug on the railing, she allowed Booth to steer her into the beach house, his hand planted self-assuredly at the small of her back as usual.

"Hi honey," her father greeted her warmly. "Enjoying the sun?" Taking her elbow, Max directed her towards the table, which was set for a large number of people. In the center, in a frosted milk glass vase, was a cheerful bouquet of daffodils bobbing their yellow heads slightly in the breeze drifting in from the open patio doors. Reaching distractedly for the flowers, she brought the vessel to her nose, smelling the faint springish perfume of the winsome blooms. But there was another scent that caught her attention, and she turned to see her father setting a large serving bowl on the table: sweet English peas, tiny baby carrots, and miniature zucchinis smaller than her pinky, glistening in melting butter and confettied with feathery, fresh dill. Staring in amazement at her favorite childhood food, she felt the déjà vu tug of memory enveloping her.

"Where did you find…" she asked in bewilderment, meeting her father's twinkling blue eyes as an oddly familiar voice called her name from the kitchen.

"Tempe, come wash up before lunch."

Turning to the sound, Brennan felt her pulse falter as she saw her mother removing two oversized oven mitts. From the dolphin belt buckle, to the tea-dyed cotton tunic she always loved, to the warm dark eyes and mahogany hair twisted up at the base of her neck, it was her mother. Her _mother._

Feeling lost in a fog, Brennan moved like a sleepwalker towards the kitchen. Her mother reached a hand to her daughter's face, playfully pinching her chin. Brennan realized that she was standing eye-to-eye with the woman she last remembered looking up at—a woman whose soft features and unlined eyes put her at an age with Brennan herself. It wasn't possible; it didn't make any sense.

"Wash your hands," she repeated patiently. "And put those flowers back on the table." Her mother smiled in mock exasperation, noting the vase of daffodils that Brennan still clutched in her hands. Turning back to the room behind her, Brennan saw her father and Booth both staring at her with encouraging expressions, as if nothing strange was happening, as if nothing was amiss. Whirling back to her mother, she felt a fission of panic invade the tranquility of the room, billowing around her in unseen currents like smoke filling a room on fire. She went cold—something was not right. She sound of the ocean faded away. The temperature dropped rapidly against her exposed skin. She felt moisture, oddly, at the corner of her mouth. Dabbing a finger cautiously to her lips, she looked down at the crimson smear of blood on her fingertips.

"Booth…" she implored, panicked. "What…?"

She turned back to her mother, finding instead a sudden darkness, as if the sun had been extinguished. Her mother was gone—the whole kitchen was gone. _What was happening?_ Spinning around frantically, she sought her father, and Booth, but found nothing more than blackness stretching in all directions. The last real thing, the vase of daffodils clenched in her white-knuckled grasp, fell suddenly from her hand and exploded on the bare concrete floor with an explosion of shattered glass.

And then pain. A tight ache around her ribs, a sharp stab on her right leg. A swollen knot on her temple. The stagnant odor of mildewed disuse. And silence.

**AN: I promise to post the next chapter quickly. I'm writing it now… : )**


	2. Chapter 2

Struggling against the hysteria that churned up from her throat, Brennan collapsed onto the bare floor, groping around her for anything, anything at all, but her fingertips found only cool concrete. The darkness was claustrophobic and absolute, a blackness so total that it confused her mind, made it seem as if she herself didn't exist. In the absence of sight, her other senses snapped to terrified attention, straining as much feeble information from the void around her as possible. She ran her hands over her body, cataloguing each bruise and contusion and open wound her fingers found, attempting to recall what clothing she was wearing from the feel of the fabric and the shape of the seams. Emptied pockets—no cell phone, no wallet.

Reality was filtering back to her consciousness now, she realized with dismay, and the reality was not a hopeful one. She recalled this space, remembered hesitantly mapping the room she was locked in by tracing off the perimeter in carefully tallied footlengths. Concrete floor, plaster walls thick enough not to echo when she rapped her knuckles against them. No windows. One door, triple-bolted. No sound. No electrical sockets. Cobwebs in two of the four corners. Dust coating the barren floor. She had trouble remembering how long she'd been trapped here, had trouble even truly accepting that this nothingness was real. But she recalled the sound of her own weeping, the dull echo of her whimpers oddly refracting around her. She remembered her own voice singing Christmas carols—the ones Russ had shouted off-tune as a child, for some bizarre reason, all that had come to mind—and creating anagrams, and reciting the pledge of allegiance and all the bones of the human body and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Anything to coax her sanity to stay with her just a little bit longer.

Her mind flicked between alternate realities like a filmstrip reel sputtering to life. She knew the affects of sensory deprivation, of solitary confinement. Anxiety, hallucination, eventual death. And that knowledge felt like an insult to her, to someone who worked in the tangible evidence of death every day—that a human body could simply cease life functioning for no reason. Literally, from a lack of reason. She knew how surprisingly little time it took for psychological collapse, how permanent the effects of that breakdown could be, even assuming survival. It was interesting how dependent on sensory input the human brain was, requiring constant proof of the surrounding world as if it was sustenance. Food for thought, she thought glibly, her dark laughter startling her in the total quiet. And now she was laughing, alone, wrapped up into herself in the fetal position, trapped like a rat in a cage. She felt her tenuous grip on cognition sliding dangerously away and forced herself to focus. Focus on her breathing. Focus on the beach house that she had painstakingly created from the desperate palette of her imagination. Conscious delusion—a method of enduring solitary, sensory deprivation. With any luck, she thought dimly, when death finally came for her it might have the courtesy to find her not in this lonely nothingness but at the beach house, a wholly fictional reality that she'd concocted to escape into, a defense that was feeble at best—but all she had.

The problem with her last attempt, she reasoned slowly, her thoughts dripping viscous and opaque as engine oil… the problem was her mother. Her presence in the kitchen had been jarring enough to rip her out of the illusion. She needed to layer in all the things, all the people, that would give her comfort, but create strictly within the lines of believability. Anything that seemed too unrealistic would rip her out of her carefully designed delusion, she realized.

Wicker recliners, she thought to herself... She traced the reedy fibers in her mind's eye, following the course of each filament as it wove over and under its neighbors, seeing the caramel color of each crisscross, reaching her fingertip to test its texture. She saw her own fingernail then, and absorbed herself in its details: the u-shaped envelope of her cuticle, the transparency at the short-filed tip, the pale violet of the half moons at the base of the nail, almost the same color as the inside of a seashell. She heard the ocean then, the reassuring susurration of the waves, and looked up to see the blue sky above her, festooned with lethargically passing clouds. The sunlight again, warm and real. And her partner right next to her, a slight smile aimed in her direction. His face was conjured perfectly from her imagination, a forgery so sensitive in its detail as to fool her as completely as she needed it to. Even more well-painted than her own finger had been, his face was richly precise. The shape of his lips, the way the light caught in the upper arc of his brown irises in a way that made them seem animated, the slight shadow of stubble because she knew he wouldn't shave on vacation. The exact shape and dimension of his body as he lounged next to her, the faint glimmer of gold hair on his forearm, the gracefully masculine line of his relaxed hand.

She concentrated on that hand as it reached gently towards her, palm up, offering comfort. She twined her fingers through his, focusing on the alternating lines of color that her paler fingers made juxtaposed against his tan ones. The texture of his hand was pleasantly raspy against her softer skin, his fingers warm and strong between hers.

"Hey Bones?" he said quietly, leaning closer. "Everything's going to be okay."

She shook her head suddenly, desperately. "No, Booth, you can't say that. Don't say anything like that. I _need _to believe that this is real. I need you to act normal." She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid that when she opened them she would see only darkness again.

"Bones," he said quietly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She opened her eyes slowly, relieved to see her partner lit by the fierce sunshine, backed by the comforting frame of the beach house. She was still here, still safe.

Shooting her a mocking grin, he shook his head ruefully. "I never had you pegged as a hand holder."

Glancing down at their still-intertwined fingers, she pulled back, embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Hey, I'm not complaining," he replied, favoring her with an amplified grin. "You can hold my hand any time you want, Bones."

She rolled her eyes indelicately at him and sank back into the wicker lounge. From somewhere below the patio, she heard the distant sound of Angela laughing…


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I'm sorry I haven't replied to any of your reviews yet—even though I spent my whole work day scuttling into corners to read them on my phone. I only have a little free time tonight and I thought you'd all rather have me post a new chapter. So, a collective and heartfelt thanks to all you for the feedback until I get the time to thank you each specially, as you deserve. : )**

The afternoon seemed to slip away quickly. The sun was dropping towards the horizon, smearing the sky with sorbet colors, when she lifted her head from the lounge chair to check on Booth. He was staring absently, a dreamy expression fixed on his face, dangling a bottle of beer lightly from his fingertips.

"Booth," she interrupted his reverie.

"Yeah, Bones?"

"The sun's setting," she said distractedly, a slight frown line puckering her forehead. "Where did the afternoon go?"

He sighed, patting his belly lightly. "I think I drank it away."

She smiled at him indulgently. "You're going to get a beer belly if you keep that up."

He scowled at his stomach, pinching the skin above his waistband. "You think I should be worried?"

"I think you know far too well how handsome you are," she chided gently.

"Boooooooooones," he laughed. "You think I'm handsome? I'm blushing!"

"Are you?" she asked, peering more closely at his face. "I don't see any blushing, but then it _is _getting…. dark…" she concluded, looking nervously at the lengthening shadows stretching across the patio. The ocean had turned a sooty shade of deep navy, meeting the deep purple stain of the sky. The light seemed to be fading so quickly, she thought. Nighttime was encroaching faster than she expected. She felt a surge of anxiety as she turned again to face her partner.

"What's wrong?" he asked, cocking his head curiously.

She struggled to find the words to answer him. She couldn't name the fear that had seized her, the uneasiness. Something felt incorrect; she couldn't seem to think clearly. She had the sudden urge to crawl right onto Booth's chair and curl up against him and cling to him. "I…I think I'm afraid of the darkness. I don't know why…" she whispered.

"Then don't look at it. Close your eyes."

"No!" she said too forcefully. "I can't." Her voice was ragged. "Where's everyone else?"

He looked back at her, confused. "Who?"

She couldn't remember who; she felt like she was losing her mind. A sudden, niggling doubt surfaced, and she turned towards the sunset. "Booth," she rasped, "why can't I hear the ocean anymore?"

He didn't answer. "Booth?" she asked. Dread constricted her breathing as she turned again to face him, an unnatural sense of foreboding filling her.

"Booth!"

He was gone. The light was gone. The darkness had returned… and with a jolt that choked the air from her lungs, she found herself alone again, curled on the cold floor, her heartbeat racing in her throat. "No!" she gasped, her own voice startling her in the emptiness. A strangled sob broke from her body as she wrapped her arms around herself, rocking ever so slightly. She surrendered to her misery, crying openly because there was no one to see, no one to tell her to stop. Salty tears coursed across her face to fall to the ground, the faint splat of each drop oddly audible. She was confused, couldn't organize her thoughts. She was suddenly furious at her partner, heart-brokenly mad at him, but couldn't remember why. But then that thought made her nearly dizzy with the need to see him, the desperate wish that he could be there to lift her off the hard ground and take her home.

She couldn't remember where she was, or how she had gotten here. The last thing she remembered, the last thing she knew, was that she had been at a house on a beach somewhere. Booth was there with her—he was wearing a white shirt. But that was all she could fathom. She lifted her hand to swipe the tears from her face, surprised to feel a painfully swollen contusion near her temple. Gasping, she traced her limbs, startled to find a deep wound in her leg among other injuries. How had she been injured? How long had she been here? She levered herself to an upright position, fighting against the tilting in her head. She felt dehydrated, her mouth so dry that she struggled not to gag. She needed to find a way out—there must be a way out. She struggled to her knees, supporting herself on shaking arms. But the darkness was so disorienting, she couldn't tell if she was crawling in a straight line or not.

She paused to catch her breath. Somehow, she had gotten frighteningly weak. And she couldn't recall… she couldn't remember…

She collapsed back onto the hard ground, feeling the chill invading her skin. She had been at a beach house, she thought dimly. But she couldn't picture it—couldn't retrieve it from memory. She was so confused… Booth had been there, though—she knew that. She tried to picture when she had last seen her partner. She wasn't able to remember the surroundings, or if anyone else had been there. But she could see him clearly. She could see him, she realized with a shaky smile. She concentrated on the details and felt suddenly reassured as he smiled back at her, confident as always.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: This chapter could be disturbing, so please skip this one if you're easily upset, and accept my apologies. This fic will end happily, but this chapter ain't it.**

"How ya doing, Bones?" he asked pleasantly.

She hesitated, raising her fingers to her temple curiously. Her smooth skin felt normal under her touch. "I think… I think I'm okay."

"You hungry? Want to grab something at the diner?"

The thought of food seemed outrageously attractive suddenly. "I'm _really _hungry," she admitted. Her eyes winced as a sudden flash of bright light pulsed around them, but as she blinked to regain her vision, she only saw her partner looking at her calmly. She shook her head against the bizarre phenomenon and told herself that she would feel better as soon as she had something to eat. Her blood sugar must be low; when had she last had any food…?

"Good, cause I could go for some pie. What do you say?" he rose to his feet, offering her a hand up.

Lifting her arm, she grasped his fingers eagerly, and froze. His hand felt odd against hers—chilly, strangely bulky. The texture of his skin felt leathery, like a glove. Tipping her head questioningly, she glanced at him, uncertain.

"Get up," he ordered her, his voice suddenly edged with anger.

"Booth…?" she asked, confused.

"Get the fuck up!" he barked, his blank face oddly at odds with the rage in his tone. His voice didn't even sound familiar to her, as if someone else was inhabiting her partner's body. She felt frightened, panicky. She ripped her fingers from his hand, scuttling backwards on the floor.

He lunged forwards, catching her painfully by the hair as she struggled away from him, the shock of his betrayal overwhelming. "No!" she screamed, trying to pry his hand away. "Booth…_why?!" _She flinched as she saw his fist swinging towards her face, choking on surprise. His knuckles connected with bone-shattering force against her skull and she could only wrap her arms over her head defensively as he swung again, catching her on the jaw. She was too weak to do anything but cower and cry as he shoved her viciously down into the floor. _What was happening—how could he…!?_ Her mind spun and splintered as his hands closed around her throat, her limbs flailing uselessly against his steely arms. "_Boo…" _She felt lead-heavy, dizzy, sinking as she suffocated under his vicelike hands, the tickle of her own tears the last thing she knew she would ever feel.

And then a thunderous roar filled her ears and her eyes exploded with the most intense light, so bright that it knifed directly into her brain in agony. Another crack of sound, piercing her eardrums with such unbearable pressure that she felt her skull had been turned inside out, and the fingers at her throat disappeared. Struggling for air but able only to cough with spasms that wracked her crushed throat, she buried her face in her hands and desperately wished for the darkness and silence to return. The light was so bright it burned through her shielding hands, infiltrated her eyelids, made her feel like she was incinerated by flame.

She felt hands on her shoulders, attempting to roll her over, and she fought against them with all the strength she had left, her eyes clenched tightly against the determined glare.

"Bones… Bones! It's okay, it's me!" The voice boomed painfully loud in her ears, distorted by too much volume, hard to identify. She couldn't make sense of it, didn't know what was happening, only knew that she had to fight with whatever she had left. She needed to open her eyes, needed her sight to protect herself. Gasping at the brilliant pain of it, she blinked her eyes open, colors swimming into view before shapes began to solidify painfully before her.

Squinting up towards the voice she had heard, Brennan saw the face of the man who had just attacked her—and screamed.

**AN: Please don't dump the haterade on me. It will get better—I promise.**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: So sorry for the delay on this chap. Real life intruded in a big way this past weekend… the angst rolls on…**

Booth shifted uncomfortably on Sweets' couch. He hadn't seen or talked to his partner in a month, and his whole world felt awkwardly flash-frozen in her absence. His casework was hollow—an unwelcome reminder of how empty it would ever feel to return to working alone, or with any other partner. Unfulfilling. Uninteresting. And—as his superiors had kindly restrained themselves from pointing out, given the circumstances—a great deal less successful. But beyond the work, he simply missed his friend. He missed the bickering more than he would have thought possible. He missed the satisfied feeling he got after sharing a meal with Bones, a feeling that had little to do with even the most excellent pie. But mostly… mostly he missed being able to take care of her in the little ways that she allowed: hounding her to eat, nagging her to leave the lab every once in a while… He missed being the person who took care of her. Now, other people were taking care of her. People he didn't know, in a place he couldn't picture. He'd never felt so much distance between them, and he'd never felt so out of control.

In the last month, he'd obsessed over every detail of her case. What he could have done differently, how he could have moved faster. And he kept replaying the last time he'd seen her; it was seared into his memory like a burn scar. He'd found her locked in that windowless room, a madman crouched over her with his hands around her throat—shades of Kenton all over again, he realized. But this time, it had been far worse. She hadn't turned to him for comfort this time—she'd screamed, her face a mask of undiluted terror, and fought against his hands. And when he'd reached for her again, she'd _flinched_, as if she expected him to strike her, and thrown her hands over her tear-stained face. The sight had leveled him, crushing his heart like a ton of bricks.

He hadn't known what to do—all his training fled his mind at the sight of his partner, utterly demolished, animalistic with fear, curled in on herself, sobbing. She was frighteningly thin, the steep angle of her shoulders and hips jutting out from her emaciated waist, her ribs straining visibly under the thin fabric of her shirt as she gasped with wracking breaths. The body of her kidnapper lay right beside her, a slowly growing puddle of blood spreading from the .45 caliber hole that Booth had blasted into his chest. He wanted to gather her up, get her away from the sick bastard's corpse cooling next to her, lift her in his arms and rush her out of that hell, but she wouldn't let him touch her; the horror and anguish on her face stopped his arms more effectively than any wall.

Fears that he refused to name spun through his mind at her reaction. He knew the terms suggested by her behavior, but he couldn't bring himself to consciously consider the possibility of… of any type of sexual assault. But then she'd weakly allowed the other agents to touch her, to wrap her in a blanket and help her onto the medic's stretcher, and so he'd tried again, reaching to hold her hand. Her cry of "No! Please!" sent him reeling into the wall behind him, stunned and hurt. Apparently it was just _him_ that she feared. So he had backed away, lurking like a mute beast as she was carried out to the waiting ambulance, confused, rejected, nearly incapacitated with grief and guilt.

And now he was here, after a month of therapy with Sweets, who he'd actually looked forward to seeing at each session because the psychologist was his only link to his partner, his only hope of news, of contact even if second-hand. He knew that Sweets had been visiting Brennan in the hospital, that he had decided that Brennan needed time to heal before she saw her partner again, and Booth had uncharacteristically heeded Sweets' advice, feeling so lost, so terrified of the expression he'd last seen on her face, that he was willing to accept the younger man's authority.

At first, Sweets had only updated him on Brennan's physical recovery, assuring him that she was receiving medical care for the dehydration and injuries. That she was slowly regaining some weight, unable to argue with the IV of nutrients the doctors had attached to her. "If they give her the choice, she'll refuse food," he'd told Sweets unnecessarily. "Tell them to drug her if they have to—she never eats enough—" he'd worried after her like a parent. And when she had been discharged from the hospital, and sent to a convalescent home to recuperate, he tormented Angela with unending phone calls. She handled him patiently, reassuring him that Brennan was slowly recovering, but failed to give him any of the information he really needed. Her voice, muffled by the phone line, was tight with misery.

"I don't know what to tell you, Booth. She's… she's not…well."

So he haunted Sweets' office, dropping in on the psychologist at all hours, demanding news of his partner with increasing disregard for how desperate he appeared. It was killing him not to see her for himself, to reassure himself that she was whole, safe. Eventually, Sweets relented under Booth's alternating methods of begging and threatening and began to relax the boundaries of doctor-patient privilege. Slowly, Booth was able to glean enough information to create a rough sketch of what had happened to his partner. He knew that she had been kept in total isolation, in complete sensory deprivation for eight days. _Eight days._ She would have died of dehydration soon if they hadn't found her. But he knew that much from the case file, and had pushed Sweets to explain why she'd… why…

He understood the effects of sensory deprivation—had trained in resistance methods as a Ranger. But none of the Rangers were ever tested beyond 24 hours. The risk was too severe. He remembered what it had done to him, how he'd felt his sanity slipping away and was unable to stop it. It was the worst torture that humanity had ever devised—no amount of physical pain or emotional pressure could begin to compare to that time-deprived darkness. And _he'd _known that his stay was artificial—that escape would come soon. It still hadn't stopped the hallucinations, the voices he'd heard inexplicably next to him, ominous hissing from deep in his mind.

And then Sweets told him, haltingly, that Brennan believed that _he _was the man who had attacked her, had kidnapped her and locked her away, had struck her and choked her. That _he _had been the monster who nearly killed her. When that sick fuck's fingers gripped her neck to strangle the life from her, it was _Booth's _face she had seen.

"You need to understand, Agent Booth," Sweets had said slowly, his voice thick with sympathy, "it's very possible that Dr. Brennan will never fully recover from this experience. What she endured… she survived as well as any person could. Better than any of the data I've seen would have predicted. But… I believe that she may have suffered a complete psychological collapse. She may never be able to return to her work again." He paused, watching his words sink in. "She may never be able to live independently. I won't know more than that until I've had more time to work with her. The convalescent home that she's in is the very best, and I assure you that she's receiving the highest quality of care—"

Booth lost the rest of the words as he bolted from Sweets' office, throwing open the door of the stairwell so hard that it jumped on its hinges. He collapsed onto the cold steps, pressing his head against the cinderblock wall, fighting the urge to retch. Sweets' words echoed inside his skull, but he couldn't really divine any meaning from them, not really. He supposed he was in shock, not thinking clearly. Because it had sounded to him almost like his partner was gone. As good as dead.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Since it took me so long on the last one, and I've been typing all night, here's a mini-chap while I work on the rest… I feel guilty about keeping you waiting. : )**

Brennan stared wryly over the top of the flashcards the psychiatrist held out to her.

"I have a 185 IQ. I was held captive, not lobotomized."

"Dr. Brennan," the gray-haired woman repeated patiently, "I know this is repetitive, but there's value in this therapy. I need you to tell me what you see on this card."

Leveling a cold stare at the psychiatrist, Brennan gritted her teeth. "It's a duck. A _duck._"

"Very good. How about this one?"

The worst thing about the convalescent home, Brennan decided, was the flashcards. Or maybe it was the food, which seemed to adhere mulishly to the 1950's trifecta of overcooked meat-thing, bland starch-thing, and boiled vegetable-thing. It was not really helping her regain weight. If the staff here was serious about fattening her up, she thought, they should order in some decent pad thai. She picked idly at the snap closure on her standard-issue cotton pants. No drawstrings, she realized for the first time, her mind cataloguing the meager collection of personal belongings that Angela had been allowed to bring her. No laces, no drawstrings, no jewelry, no pens.

"Am I considered a suicide risk?" she demanded angrily.

The psychiatrist tilted her head and paused. "Do you ever think of hurting yourself?" she asked.

Face crimson with rage, Brennan hissed, "No—I'd never. And I'm tired of being treated like this. It's actively _hampering _my recovery to be… to be doubted like this. To be coddled. I'm checking myself out. I'm declaring myself _healed_ and I'm going home." She rose angrily from her chair and strode towards the door.

"…so if you're healed, it's correct to say that you never think about the beach house anymore?"

The woman's words stopped Brennan's hand on the doorknob. Swallowing thickly, she glanced at the floor. The flecked diamonds of quartzite tile were a morose, institutional gray underneath her slippered feet. She leaned weakly against the door frame, the painted wood cool against her forehead. No matter how many times they told her the details of her kidnapping, no matter how _rationally _she knew that… that Booth wasn't, hadn't… she couldn't escape the feeling of foreboding that chilled her spine when she thought of her partner. She wanted, more than anything, to believe in him the way she used to, to trust him implicitly. To have her best friend back. The thought that her attacker had succeeded in killing her trust for Booth broke her heart, made her hate her own weak inability to recover, made her sick with guilt. Sweets said she just needed time, but time was passing and she was so afraid that she might never be able to overcome this.

And the psychiatrist was shrewdly, cruelly correct. She _did _still think about the beach house, often in her dreams, but even more troublingly, she would sometimes find herself there again against her will, in times of loneliness or stress, or when the pile of books in her room failed to hold her attention, or when the raindrops that pelted the small, high window of her room steered her mind to the idea of unending water. But now, when she found herself at the beach, she was alone. Her comfort had become solitude, an empty expanse of wind-buffeted sand. The knowledge that she now felt most secure in isolation staggered her with sadness, with uncharacteristic self-pity.

Sighing deeply, she pushed herself from the door and returned to her chair, slumping wanly against the plastic. She brushed an errant tear from her cheek and reluctantly raised her eyes to the psychiatrist.

"Dr. Brennan," the older woman said kindly, placing the deck of flashcards aside, "you _can _beat this."

Brennan could only hope that she was right.


	7. Chapter 7

Booth had never been a distance runner, not really. He wasn't built for it, and he'd never been able to lose himself in that runner's high that others spoke of. So why was it that he'd spent the majority of his free time over the past few weeks pounding the pavement? He'd started at the shooting range, seeking the preternatural calm that he'd always found with a target in his sights, the feeling of cold competence. But he'd felt heat instead—the disturbingly sick urge to dig that fucker back out of the ground he'd been buried in and sink a few more rounds in him just to hear the _thwok thwok thwok_ of bullets lodging in flesh. Whatever flesh was left on that evil bastard by now, anyway. Disgusted by his own thoughts, worried at how reasonable his twisted fantasy had started to seem, he'd left the range and laced on his running shoes instead.

The crisp rhythm of his stride hitting the sidewalk kept metronome time to his thoughts. His breath puffed dense little clouds in the quickly-chilling autumn air. The last time he'd seen Bones, they had walked through the rose garden in front of the Jeffersonian, harried and bickering over the details of a case. Neither of them had stopped to notice the saturated green of the August grass, or heard the cadence of bees, or felt the bathwater mellowness of the summer air. Now, a whole season seemed to have passed since he'd seen her. He wondered suddenly if they ever let her go outside.

Pausing at a crosswalk to wait for the light, he raised his arms over his head to open his lungs and sucked oxygen grimly. A heavy ache spread around his ribcage, and his fingers felt swollen from swinging by his sides for so long. But he never got tired, he could never run far enough. He steered himself home only when the rational dictates of obligation required it. Get home, get enough sleep to get through another day, be home in time to pick Parker up and have enough energy to muster a fake smile for his son. And then run again. Set out from home and push towards any horizon line and just keep going in an attempt to finally chase down exhaustion.

The manic exercise and lack of favorite dinner companion had started to show on his body. His muscular bulk had been winnowed down to the leanness of a much younger man, his arms sinewy, his stomach razor-flat. But truth to tell, he hadn't really noticed. He wasn't noticing a lot of things these days. He'd told himself initially that it would get easier in time, and made bargains with himself. Like if he could just get through three more days without completely losing it, things would surely be better. And yet, each day seemed worse than the previous one. His grieving process hadn't progressed much beyond disbelief. Denial of what had happened to his partner, of what had happened to him. Mutilating guilt for not finding her sooner, for not protecting her in the first place, for ever tempting her out of academia and into his dangerous world in the first place. And even—in the quiet hours he spent waiting for sleep—anger at _her._ For imagining him of all people as her attacker. For being so smart and yet somehow stupid enough to ever think he would hurt her. Hallucinations, psychological collapse, etcetera etcetera. And yet. Part of him was so _angry_ that she believed he was capable of raising a single finger against her. _She should know better._

But she hadn't been rational then, so it would be _irrational _to apply logic to the situation, a certain empiricist's voice reminded him in his mind. He could never blame her anyway, not really. Couldn't punish her after what she'd endured. But, he reminded himself as he lunged into a steep incline that stung his legs with satisfying brutality, he could punish himself. So he did, his long strides swallowing whole sections of sidewalk as the ground blurred into a gray river flowing beneath him. He pushed himself harder, his feet hitting the earth with bruising force, his lungs screaming for oxygen. He pushed relentlessly until he found himself at Bones' apartment, the dim torchierres flanking the front door invitingly. He hadn't planned to come here, hadn't had any reason to visit the place that had lost its meaning in her absence. It was just a building now, a bunch of bricks.

Or not quite, he realized, idly tracing the wrought iron scrollwork on the front door. It still held all her things. It might still, he hoped, feel like her. Without hesitation, he retrieved the hidden key and let himself in, closing the door quietly after.

He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but he hadn't expected this: this feeling of crushing familiarity, of _missing her so damn much _to hit him this hard. Her books, her artwork, her coffee mug unrinsed in the sink, the scent of her shampoo still lingering on the bath towel. He moved through the apartment like a ghost, fingertips trailing reverently behind him, trying to absorb her essence. He stopped at the bookshelf, her face drawing him from one of the framed photographs she kept there. She was bathed in sunlight, dirt-smeared but radiant in what Zach had called her eco-warrior gear. She rested one arm lightly on the shoulders of an elderly woman. Her expression captivated him, the brave tilt of her chin as she stared the camera down, looking like some martyred saint from the crusades. Guatemala.

He lifted the photo to look more closely, his eyes caressing the precious details of her face. He knew the vague idea of what she'd survived on that trip—of the near-death experience that somehow hadn't broken her spirit. She was so tough, so resilient, with a tenaciousness belying her fragile appearance. A diamond.

He rushed across the room to her phone, and dialed the Bureau operator to get forwarded to Sweets' home number. He paced as he waited for the psychologist to pick up, still gripping the photo desperately.

"…llo?" a voice answered groggily.

"Sweets!" he barked, "wake up. I need to ask you something about Bones."

He heard a slow intake of breath on the other end of the line as Sweets snapped to life. "Agent Booth, I told you this afternoon—I don't have any news. Dr. Brennan is in good hands, and she's healing right now. What you need to do is—"

"That's the thing. They shouldn't let her heal, do you understand? They should make her fight—she's a fighter."

"I don't follow…"

"She needs to… I don't know… she has to…" the idea that had seized him with its clarity just moments before now shimmered maddeningly out of reach, suddenly vague and unformed and uncertain. He realized suddenly how crazy he sounded, how tired. Frowning deeply, he let the phone slide down his jaw.

"…ent Booth?" Sweets' voice issued tinny and distant from the slipping phone.

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm sorry I woke you. I thought I had an idea, but I… I guess I don't," Booth said dejectedly.

"Can I ask you something?" Sweets paused. "Why are you calling me from Dr. Brennan's home?"

"Forget I called," Booth growled, slamming the phone down. He swiped his hand over his eyes in weariness. He was really starting to slip. If he didn't watch it, he'd find himself benched, and then he'd have even more hours of the day to spend flagellating himself for failing his partner. And missing her. He raised the photo to his lips and dropped a chaste kiss onto the glass before letting himself back out into the autumn night. He had a long run ahead of him, and he intended to feel every single hideous, tortuous step.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Do you hear that creaking sound…? Is it? Yes! It's the sound of this awful angst-ship slowly turning into calmer waters. Frakking finally! : ) Thanks for sticking with me so far… and now I'm going to pour myself a big fat drink. Anybody else want one? Mmmm? I think we've earned it.**

Sweets rushed through the door of Brennan's room as she sat staring irritably at her millionth crossword puzzle. She was surprised to see how excited he looked, his youthful face lit with an undoctorly grin.

"I totally have an idea," he paused to catch his breath. "We've been trying to help you move on, because that's what normal people would need to do, right? But you're totally not normal!" he concluded triumphantly.

Scowling, Brennan surveyed him calmly. "Did you come here to insult me, Sweets?"

Rolling his eyes, he tried again. "I'm sorry—that came out wrong… what I mean is, you don't need to let it heal over. You need to dissect it!"

"I'm sorry, I'm not following you…"

"You and I are going to dissect the whole experience, like an autopsy. We're going to get you some answers… even if it gets… gross."

Brennan sighed. "Alright, I get the metaphor. But can you make an appointment?" she asked wryly, gesturing to the pile of crosswords in front of her. "I'm buried under paperwork right now."

Sweets paused, uncertain. "…Did you just… make a joke, Dr. Brennan?" he asked.

She gave him the first real smile she'd mustered in over a month and nodded, pleased with herself. Perhaps his enthusiasm was catching.

Shrugging, she mumbled, "What the hell… I'll give it a try. Will I need a rib spreader, or do you have your own tools?"

"Two jokes!" he announced in surprise, shaking his head in appreciation. "Wow."

Closing the door behind him, he shrugged out of his jacket and settled in while Brennan sat cross-legged on her bed. Receiving guests, colleagues, in what had become her bedroom was just another uncomfortable reality of her life in the convalescent home. The author in her observed the slow erosion of her pride with a detached sort of interest. Things like this had bothered her intensely at first, but as time wore on she found that she was willing to surrender every last molecule of her pride if it got her a chance at recovery. To accept the nightlights Angela had brought her without comment. To accept the flowers that still arrived almost daily from her team. Surrender pride and accept help.

"Okay, so, this is what I'm thinking," Sweets began. "You survived this… captivity…better than you should have, better than could be expected. And I think the reason you were able to do that is because you were so incredibly good at the conscious delusion. This makes sense, right?" he thought out loud. "I mean, your power of mind is incredible. Incredible enough to keep your sanity when almost anyone else would lose theirs. You tricked yourself so well, in fact, that now you're having trouble _untricking_ yourself."

Brennan remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"And you're so stubborn-minded—I mean that as a compliment, I swear… mostly—that you'll never believe me or anyone else sitting here trying to tell you what was real and what wasn't. So what we're going to do is have _you_ discover what was real and what wasn't. Using logic," he concluded smugly.

She sighed. "Sweets, if I could do that, I'd already be back at work."

"No, no," he shook his finger impatiently. "Because you, quite naturally, are trying to _stop_ thinking about the beach house, am I right?"

She nodded slowly. "Of course I'm trying to stop…"

"Well we're going to go back there. Together. And we're going to look at your conscious delusion logically, and I'm going to prove to you, rationally, in a way that you can accept, what was real and what was false. Sound good?"

"Well, not good," she demurred, "but… logical." She smiled slightly, a tinge of hope brightening within her.

"Alright. Take me back to the first time you found yourself at the beach house. Describe the scene for me."

Wincing slightly, Brennan breathed deeply and focused her thoughts. "It was sunny, I heard the waves and the gulls, I felt the breeze… Hodgins and Angela were there, you were there—" she recalled with a flash of amusement, "—with a big smear of zinc oxide on your nose. It looked ridiculous," she admitted.

"Okay, I would never wear that," he interrupted. "But please continue…"

"I was on a patio overlooking the beach, with… Booth. I could see him so clearly… my father was there and daffodils and… and my mother," she whispered.

"The people who brought you comfort," he prodded quietly, nodding. Honestly, he was ridiculously flattered that he had been one of that small group of people, but he kept the comment to himself. "That makes sense. But when you were out on the patio, what did you see when you looked… away?"

"Out at the ocean?" she asked. "Just… water."

"No, on either side of you. Look down the beach. Do you see anything?"

Frowning slightly, she considered. "No… just sort of, more beach. Nothing really."

"So your mind focused on the people and things right around you, but didn't fill in the horizon very well. That's understandable, right? But that lack of detail isn't… real, is it? And the beach house itself, what did it look like?"

"It was... generic, I guess. Just like any house on the beach. You know, wicker and breezy curtains… I don't really remember much else about it." Seeing where he was going with this, she could admit that the scene hadn't been fully formed. "All of you, I felt like I was looking at all of you from a distance somehow. All of you except Booth, anyway."

"Okay, so you can see Booth clearly. Can you see his hands?" he asked, his eyes narrowing with intensity.

"Yes—he was, at one point… I was holding his hand."

"Can you see the tattoos on his wrists?" Sweets asked intently.

Surprised, Brennan paused, concentrating on the world in her memory. "I… they weren't there," she admitted quietly. "I forgot them."

"Do you see where I'm going with this? There will be holes, errors, places where your mind wasn't able to faithfully reconstruct reality. We need to find them until you're convinced. And it makes total sense, by the way, that Booth was clearer than anyone else," he commented.

"Why is that?"

Shooting her a look that clearly conveyed disappointment, Sweets sighed. "Because your partner is the single most important person in your conscious delusion—the one person you turned to for comfort beyond all others."

"He _did _stay after the rest of you disappeared—even Angela," she admitted quietly, nervously chewing her lip.

"Now, the presence of your mother… that obviously wasn't real."

"Obviously," she agreed with some impatience.

"You personally handled her remains," he pressed on. "You know she's dead."

"Sweets!" she protested angrily.

He lifted his hands, palms up in placation. "I had to be sure. When you saw her, though, had she aged? Or did she look the way you last remembered her?"

Brennan swallowed miserably, forcing herself to remember the softness of her mother's face, the gentle color of her eyes. She could only nod her head to show Sweets that she understood, that she conceded his point.

"So you can accept that your parents, that Angela and Hodgins and I weren't real—were figments of your imagination?"

She sighed, rubbing her temples in defense of a threatening headache. "Yes."

"But you have trouble accepting _emotionally_ that Agent Booth wasn't there because your mind constructed him far more accurately than the rest of us. Again, that makes sense," he said soothingly. "But even your memory of Agent Booth had a few errors. Now, I know this is difficult, but I need you to take me through the _last _time you remember the beach house, right before you saw your partner attacking you."

She swallowed nervously. She'd known that Sweets would want to dredge this up, had steeled herself for the inevitability. But still… she found herself going cold with dread, her stomach tightening into knots.

"It's okay, Dr. Brennan. Take your time."

Courage, she coached herself. She had faced demons before. "I was talking with Booth… I don't remember what we were talking about. But there was a bright light all of a sudden—"

"I believe that was your attacker entering the room," Sweets interjected.

"We were… we were planning to go to the diner. I was so hungry. …Booth offered me a hand to help me off the ground, but his fingers felt…wrong."

Sweets nodded. "The man that imprisoned you was wearing gloves."

She let the information sink in, tried to open her mind to the truth of it. "He… he yelled at me. He swore at me—he was so angry," she whispered in a voice full of anguish. "But his face was blank. So strangely blank…"

"Okay, let's focus on that," he said intently. "Now why do you think your mind failed to portray Agent Booth accurately here? Why couldn't you see that anger on his face?"

She considered quietly, picking nervously at the sleeve of her shirt. She'd seen Booth angry plenty of times, in the interrogation room, when apprehending a suspect… she'd seen him annoyed with her, irritated. But… "I've never seen rage in him before, so I couldn't picture it," she realized. "I couldn't imagine what his expression would look like, facing me, directing that at _me_." It made sudden, clear sense.

"Exactly!" he agreed, smiling. "I believe that you were able to hold onto your vision of Agent Booth long after the other comforts of your conscious delusion had disappeared, but in your delirium, your mind mixed up the actual events—your actual attacker and his words, his actions—with the one figment of your imagination that hadn't abandoned you."

Brennan felt the hot sting of tears welling over her eyelids. Everything Sweets was telling her made sense. Solid, reliable, sense.

"Keep going," he encouraged.

The hope that was slowly bubbling inside of her helped her push through the toughest part. "He grabbed me by the hair—it hurt so much. I struggled, tried to get away. He hit me, over and over again, shoved me down," she whispered.

"Has Agent Booth _ever _hit you?"

"No!"

Sweets noted her immediate defense of her partner with excitement. She was getting there. "Do you have any reason at all to believe he ever would hit you?"

"No."

"In your knowledge of Agent Booth's character, can you imagine him striking anyone defenseless, much less a woman, much less his friend and partner?"

Numbly, she shook her head, shamed now that she'd ever believed it possible. It all sounded so ill-conceived, so improbable, when examined rationally like this. She hated herself for imagining such a thing, no matter how delirious she'd been. She hated herself too for needing logic to convince her of Booth's innocence—if their places had been reversed, he would have simply _felt _it. He would have had faith.

As if he sensed the self-loathing direction of her thoughts, Sweets interrupted. "I can't say this enough—take it easy on yourself. Feeling guilty helps no one. And remember that you've already overcome impossible odds just to be here talking with me, to be cognizant. You are amazing," he said genuinely. "The mind can play tricks on us, especially when you consciously need it to in order to survive. And the greater the mind, the greater the trick. Now _keep going_."

"There were loud sounds, and a bright light," she remembered.

"That was Booth—the real Booth—and the other agents breaking the door down."

"—more sounds, cracking noises so loud it hurt my ears."

"Gunshots," he said quietly.

"—a voice so loud that it was distorted, I couldn't recognize it, but it called me 'Bones'… and hands gripping my shoulders."

Sweets allowed his eyes to drop to the floor. This was the part of the story he'd heard from Agent Booth, and he couldn't hear a rehashing of the events without picturing the agent's broken, bewildered face as he recalled how his partner had flinched away from him with fear. His sympathy for both of them was almost overwhelming. He remained silent, allowing her to fit the final pieces into place.

"That was Booth," she murmured. "He found me."

The seconds rushed by as her mind sorted through this new understanding. Of the reality that the other psychiatrists had told her about repeatedly, of the black and white facts of the case file that Sweets had consented to bring her. But their reality had never _felt _true before, had never been persuasive enough to banish the fear and confusion lingering in her abused and battered mind. But this… this felt true. Logical and right. The relief was staggering, the joy overwhelming. Her mind was clear; she felt like herself again.

She pushed herself off the bed and placed a rough kiss on Sweets' flustered cheek, her tears of gratitude leaving a damp spot on his face. "_Thank you," _she whispered raggedly, the words not enough, but all she could find.

"Actually, I got the idea from Agent Booth. He called me last night, and something he said… "

_Booth._

Her heart tripped over itself. She ran for the door, almost blind with urgency. "I need to see him—now!"

**AN: !!! Let me know what you think—where you want this to end up. I have my own ideas, of course, but am open to requests. : )**


	9. Chapter 9

The urgent knocking at his door startled Booth from his thoughts. He'd been changing to go out on another endless run and didn't really feel like having any company to delay him from the pain. Smoothing the bottom of his t-shirt over his sweatpants, he grumpily went to answer it.

Whipping the door open irritably without checking the peephole, he received the shock of his life. _Bones_. Just standing there, her wide blue eyes looking up at him. He backed slowly away, unsure of how to invite a ghost into his apartment—a figment of his imagination he wished more than anything wouldn't leave. He could feel the blood draining from his face as he stared back at her, barely breathing. No sudden moves.

She stepped in and quietly shut the door behind her. She could tell from the haunted look on his face that she had hurt him deeply. And he looked different than she remembered—thin and tightly wrapped with tension. She wanted so badly to touch him, but he kept backing away from her with a frozen expression on his face. She didn't know where to start, what to say. After weeks of stewing in her own fears and worries, she suddenly was unable to think of herself, as if she had reached her limit of introspection. The knowledge of what this ordeal must have cost him collapsed around her. She could see now what these weeks had done to him, what it must have been like to rescue her only to have her turn away, reject him. It throbbed with a deep, physical pain that even _she_ knew came from her heart.

"Booth," she said quietly, only to see a small tremor pass through his body. "I need to explain."

He drew a shaky breath. Did ghosts _explain_?

"When I was… in there…I could feel my mind just, just slipping away. I created a safe place to escape to—you were all there, Angela and Hodgins and my parents, and even Sweets. But day after day, it got harder to hold onto, harder to remember. Everyone started… vanishing. You were the only one…" her voice faltered. "You were the _only _one who never left me. I would have lost my mind if it weren't for you."

She took a tentative step towards him. "And I'm so sorry, _so _sorry Booth…that I got confused, that I didn't understand what happened at the end. I _know_ that you would _never hurt me._ And I should never have doubted that. No matter how… broken I was, I shouldn't have doubted that." She shook her head slightly against the tears welling up against her will.

When Brennan spoke like this, with passion etched into every angle of her beautiful face, he was mesmerized. He'd seen it a few times before, and it never failed to crush his heart, but he'd never seen her this raw, this undefended. He realized now that she was no ghost, that she was whole and alive and _here, _with him. The relief was staggering. He felt like he couldn't breathe.

"More than anyone else in my life, Booth, I can count on you. _You stayed,_" she whispered, her voice coarse. "I've realized a lot of things—maybe it's something about being lost for so long that now I can see everything more clearly than before—for the first time," she struggled to find the words, knew that she was nearly babbling now, "I know I want something more… I _need _something more…I have no pride left, and I'm not afraid…"

He wanted so badly to hold her, but feared that she wasn't ready. He understood the demons she was fighting against, that one of them had taken his form. He wasn't sure exactly what she was trying to say—his mind kept spinning unhelpfully, so overcome that it was difficult to process all that she was telling him. But he needed to touch her like he needed a cure, so he reached his hand out hesitantly, allowing her to make the decision.

She rushed past his offered hand and threw herself into him, holding on as tightly as she could. "I need _you,_" she gasped.

The relief was agonizing; stunned, he folded her in his arms and held on tight, gripping her against him with all the manic energy he'd never been able to run off, all the anguish and suffering and desperation. All of it, transmuted magically into an overwhelming feeling of peace. He was bowled over by the rightness of holding her like this, the feeling of completeness. He wondered if it was possible to die from delirious joy, could only squeeze his eyes shut and hold on. He felt her arms twine around his shoulders and wondered how long he could get away with this before she pulled back. Whatever she was willing to accept, it wasn't going to begin to be enough.

"You're going to have to give me a minute here Bones," he laughed quietly, squeezing her tighter. "Now that I have you back I'm not sure if I can let you go."

Surprised to feel his arms shaking around her, she buried her head against his shoulder and placed a reverent kiss over his heart. "I don't want you to," she admitted.

Lifting her easily, he stood still as stone, absorbing the solid soft reality of his partner in his embrace. Her feet dangled uselessly beneath her, her body completely relaxed and trusting. Alpha-male speeches be damned, he needed to feel the living weight of her to convince himself that she was truly here, safe.

"I thought he took you from me. I thought I'd lost you," he confessed raggedly, burrowing his face into the waves of her hair.

"Booth," she said intensely, pushing herself away from him just enough to see his face. He set her delicately back on her feet as her hands rose gently to his face, stroking into his hair. Their eyes locked and she wilted to see the agony behind his. She didn't know what to say to take that anguished look from his face, didn't know how to apologize enough. So she leaned in on her tiptoes and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, on his closed eyelids, on his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Booth," she whispered. "But I'm here now."

As if to convince himself, he ran his hands over her arms, as if checking for injuries, watching the progress of his own hands over her body intensely. Her wrists felt dangerously fragile under his fingertips, her elbows too sharp, her shoulders too narrowly defined. He smoothed his hands over her clavicles to her neck, looking for any rational indication of how such a slender, delicate throat could have possibly survived the grip of a murderer's hands. Whatever bruises she must have had were gone now, he found. It was extraordinary, he thought—not for the first time—that the toughest person he knew lived inside such a delicate shell. That the most resilient mind could be encased in the rose-petal skin he found as his fingers trailed across her forehead. He dropped his arms to her sides, conscientiously continuing his study past her ribcage until his hands settled on the scooped-in curve of her waist, spanning the distance to her hipbones.

She allowed his inspection patiently. She got the sense that he was still somehow attempting to catalogue the reality that she was back, that she was recovered. But it didn't matter to her anyway, because his touch felt so profoundly right that it sent shivers directly to the center of her. She wondered if he'd understood what she meant when she said she needed him. Wondered if now was even the right time to stress him with her desire to obliterate that line between them. But the simple truth was that she had learned how to ask for help, and was ready now to ask for his. Help caring for her heart, help satisfying all the baser cravings of her body, help continuing to become the whole person he'd always coaxed her to be, help navigating a lifetime.

His hands had ceased shaking as they smoothed over her. His face, though still pale, had lost some of its horrible tension, and his eyes had warmed considerably to the point that he almost looked like himself again. The only thing missing, she realized, feeling its loss more deeply than she'd known possible, was his smile. She suddenly had to see it again, couldn't bear another minute wallowing in gloom. She raised her hands to cup his precious, life-affirming face and whispered, "_Everything is going to be okay_. I promise."

He smiled tenderly, wanting more than anything to believe her, feeling suddenly that he might be able to.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Bit of a challenge here, to end with some smut (Harlem…) without totally abusing the 'T' rating of this fic. Hopefully it's vague enough to not offend. Thank you all SO MUCH for reading this fic, and sticking with me past the angst, and for all the kind words of encouragement (Em!!!). It's been fun. : )**

_Seven months later…_

It was _that _dream again. It should probably trouble her more, and maybe it would have bothered the woman that she used to be. But now, here, she didn't worry. She simply felt, enjoying the cool sweep of the waves against her ankles, curling her toes into the giving sand beneath her, feeling a million tiny crunches beneath the smooth soles of her feet. The retreating waves left a champagne froth of effervescent bubbles around her, slowly popping and leaving miniature dimples in their wake.

She lifted her arms slightly to let the breeze wrap around her, tickle the fabric against her skin. It felt glorious. She turned her smile to face the one she knew was there with her—he was always there. His short hair caught the sunlight, gilded at the tips, shades darker than his bronzed skin. The wings of his open shirt flapped freely, flirting around the trim narrow of his waist. The jeans that he wore rolled up to his knees sat dangerously low on his hips, revealing deeply angled indentations that disappeared beneath the waistband. He quirked an eyebrow at her and pointed to his clothing in amusement.

"Really?" he asked. "Are you sure you don't want to imagine me with an eyepatch or something? Maybe some long Fabio hair? A sword?"

Laughing, she grabbed him in an exuberant hug. "I like how you look."

Nuzzling into her neck, he grinned and pulled her firmly against his hips. "Look how low these pants are, Bones. I feel _violated,"_ he squeaked in a girlish voice. "And God only knows what else you're going to do with me."

Pulling his face gently down to her own, she delicately traced the line of his smile with the tip of her tongue, stopping at the corner to kiss him softly. She ran her nimble fingers over the taut skin of his chest, trailing over the bulge of his pectoral muscles before crisscrossing the gridwork of his abdomen. Smiling cheekily at him, she allowed her finger to drop to the deep grooves of his ilia that funneled so tantalizingly towards the zipper of his jeans.

He groaned, gripping her arms to pull her hard against him, covering her mouth with his. His lips were a tender contrast to the harsh stubble of his jaw, sweet and firm as they moved against hers. She sank into his kiss as if she'd tasted him a million times, as if she intimately knew all his secrets and knew exactly how to get him all worked up. And maybe she did, she thought cheekily, running her nails feather-light down the side of his chest in a way that always made him shudder. She nipped his earlobe gently, gratified to hear his moan of desire.

"Bones," he gasped breathlessly. "If you don't stop that, I'm going to have you flat on your back in the sand."

She laughed at his threat. "If I recall correctly, _you _were the one who had a problem with last time, not me."

With a wounded pout on his handsome face, he replied, "Hey, I had sand in places where sand should _never _be."

"Don't be such a baby," she teased.

"Baby? _Baby?!"_ he crowded her. Hiking her skirt up to her hips, he lifted her so that she could wrap her legs around his middle. He gripped her behind in his large hands and ground her hips flush against his. "I'm all man, _baby,_" he growled.

Letting her head fall back as she swooned into his embrace, she let the bright sun disorient her, blooming spots of color behind her closed eyelids. She let the feel of his lips and tongue, as they pulled the heat from the flesh of her throat, wash over her in waves of sensation. "Oh God, Booth," she cried, feeling her body tighten in anticipation for him.

"Bones…" he murmured. "Bones…"

"Mmmff?"

"Bones! Wake up, you're dreaming."

Brennan opened her eyes to a ray of pearly morning light sneaking through the blinds, so different from the midday glare of the beach. Groaning in frustration, she rolled onto her side to peer sleepy-eyed at her partner. His grin beamed down at her mockingly.

"You woke me up before the best part, Booth," she whined petulantly.

He traced a fingertip lovingly over her slightly ruffled eyebrow. "_That _dream again?"

She nodded, recognizing a mixture of amusement and concern in his dark eyes. She sighed, stretching her long legs inelegantly beneath the toasty covers. "Booth…" she murmured, "do you think I'm crazy?"

He shifted closer so that he could smooth her unruly curls away from her neck. Tenderness filled his eyes as he gazed down at her in earnest. He answered her quietly. "Yes, certifiably."

She ripped her pillow out from underneath her head and smacked him with it full in the face, pleased to see him wince.

"Seriously, Bones," he laughed, grabbing her wrists to prevent any further pillow-assault, "everything that happens to us leaves a scar—"

Her eyes shifted self-consciously to the pale bullet-shaped scar above his heart as she pondered his words.

"—some are physical, some are emotional. It would be nice if it wasn't true, but… all those scars are a part of who we are." He pulled her fingers to his lips, placing reverent kisses along the pale ridge of her knuckles. "If I could go back in time and make it so that it never happened, I would," he said, his voice low with sympathy.

Brennan's vision slipped into middle distance as she thought about what Booth had said. She wasn't really that worried about having the dream again; it tended to pop up every few weeks or so, but since she left the convalescent home it had become a safe, sweet dream, and always included Booth. After enduring the mental distress she'd suffered, all things considered, it really wasn't much of a burden to bear. She was more troubled by his admission that he would undo the whole experience if he could. Realistically, she'd come to terms with the whole experience long ago—had actually come, in a strange way—to be thankful for it.

"Booth… I'm glad it happened."

His eyebrows shot up with disbelief. Maybe he _was _starting to worry that she was actually crazy. "What?"

"Well, obviously, the _way _that it happened was unfortunate, but… bottoming out like that sort of allowed me to start over. It's like the worst had already happened, so there was nothing left to fear. Ever since I came back—since you found me—I've been …brave."

"Brave?" he asked quietly, mesmerized by the shy smile curving her rosy lips.

"Mmm hmm," she agreed, rolling suddenly on top of him to sit straddling his hips. At his shark intake of breath, she lowered herself more firmly, swiveling friction-heat against him. "Brave enough to open my heart…" She reached between them to remove the inconvenient barriers of fabric, "…and to ask you to fill it up."

He gasped as he felt the heat of their skin sliding together. "That's… ah… not your heart, Bones," he groaned.

"You fill my _everything _up," she purred.

"Oh God," he panted.

Smiling radiantly, she reflected that even the heat of the beach's midday sun couldn't compare to the scorching hotness of the man that she loved. Had she told him that lately? Since the last time they'd been together—since last night? How had she started a day without confessing how much she loved him? What was she thinking?

Bending over him to kiss him deeply, swallowing his moans in her mouth, she showed him her appreciation, just before throwing her head back and crying out just how much she loved him, over and over and over and over…

_**The End : )**_


End file.
